Sleep
by Gwynthe
Summary: Ginny just wants to sleep. Rated T for implicit suicidal thoughts


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Ginny wants to _sleep_. She wants to lay down in her bed, between the sheets and just... be gone. She's tired and sick and heavy, barley kept alive by the dull and shallow heartbeat. Hermione once told her that you can be brain-dead, that your heart keeps beating, but you're not really alive, it feels like that now. Just working on auto-pilot, doing the same things every day and every night. Routines, that's the only thing that keeps her going. Forcing herself to stay awake every night, because if she sleeps in the dark, she'll start dreaming about black hair and dark eyes. Then she'll wake up sweating and heart beating wondering when the dreams of _her_ turned into nightmares.

Just before the day starts she will run over to the window and watch the sun rise and the sky go from black to orange and pink and then to blue. That's the only time of the day she can forget and just be there. When the sky is blue and reality come crashing back, she goes back to bed and sleep until Hermione comes bursting in, complaining about how she could sleep through the first lesson. Hermione helps her get dressed and follows her to class, and Ginny sits through the class like a good nice student before going back up to her bed and sleep.

For the first time in her life she wish she believed in God, because then Cho would be waiting on the other side. Watching over her in the sky, as an angel. But not a pure white angel, a greyish angel, with a wicked smile and kind eyes. But Ginny doesn't believe in stuff like that, complete rubbish in her opinion. Nothing is waiting on the other side and Cho's body is nothing but dirt and dead.

Some days just burns into your brain and stays. So of course Ginny remember it as if it was only yesterday that she came down one morning to the Great Hall and Cho wasn't there. Then she knew. She knew Cho had left her, because it was war, and faces missing from the tables wasn't unusual. A grey owl came with a sealed letter half-way through the breakfast. It was clearly written in a rush and Ginny lifted it to her nose, expecting to smell the familiar scent of Cho. It smelled like parchment.

_Dear Ginny_

_Hopefully this letter reached you fast, so you won't go around worrying. I'm sorry I didn't tell before, but I couldn't take any chances. My family and I had to go into hiding as dad's a Muggle and my parents think it's best that I come with them in case something happens. I can't tell you where we are now, not safe writing stuff like that in a letter, not even sure it's safe sending you this, but I had to. I'm sorry, but you can't send me a letter, not yet, nothing's safe nowadays. I'll send you another when we're safer. I'll see you again when all this is over._

_I love you_

_Cho_

_PS: __**Stay safe**_

She kept the letter on her the next week, as a token and promise of return. Until the morning she found Cho's name on a list of those who were reported dead in the Prophet. A numbness had crept over her body and a knot tightened in her chest. She hadn't realized she was crying until Hermione had exclaimed it with a worried voice. Calmly she had gotten up and somehow managed to walk slowly out of the Great Hall, before breaking into a run. Up and up she had ran and she hadn't stopped until she reached the Astronomy Tower. She had walked over to the edge and looked down at the green grass on the ground. It had just looked so soft and pleasant and welcoming, and it screamed for her to jump. Her legs had acted by themselves and suddenly she was sitting on the brick fence staring down. A delightful tingling sensation crept from her foot and up her legs, replacing the numbness. Leaning forward, preparing to feel the tingling all through her body, six arms had grabbed her and pulled her down. She had started to fight, but the hands didn't let go. _The grass_ she tried to explain, but they didn't listen and the hands never softened their grip.

They carried her all the way down to the common room and pushed her down in the couch in front of the fire. Three pair of worried and pained eyes stared at her, they wanted her to explain. But Ginny couldn't, they wouldn't understand about her and Cho, they didn't know what it was like to lose someone you loved and valued above all. After a while they gave up and she pushed past them throwing Cho's last remembrance on the fire, ran up to the dormitory and fell down in a sobbing mass on the bed. That's when her brain turned off and auto-pilot switched on.

One day the routine that kept her together was broken. As always Hermione came bursting in after the first class. With a firm walk she went over to the bed and woke Ginny. But instead of dressing her, Hermione packed her in in blankets and sat down on the bed behind her. She plucked up _Cho_'s hairbrush, the same hairbrush Ginny had used to brush _her_ black silk hair after Cedric died. As Hermione started to brush, tears welled up in Ginny's eyes, but Hermione just continued to brush in the same steady pace until she was done. Then she laid Ginny's head back on the pillow and put her arms around her, she didn't say anything, just let Ginny cry her heart out, while she held her.

The rest of the day they had spent sitting there in bed, mostly in silence, but sometimes talking. They had sstarted to yawn, she had only slept a couple hours before Hermione came and for the first time since Cho died, with Hermione's arms around her, Ginny summoned a house elf and had gotten dinner sent up, Hermione didn't even complain about the extra work for the poor elves. When the sun sank, Ginny lept through the entire night. The next morning she had woken alone to find a hot cup of tea waiting on her nightstand. After that Hermione came into her room each night and held her, let her sleep through the first class as always, before she came in and helped her dress for class. Slowly, bit by bit, going on auto-pilot, Ginny returned to life, but still nagging in the back of her mind was the desperate desire to just give in to the sorrow and _sleep_.


End file.
